


Letting Go

by Arvak



Category: Original Work
Genre: And philosophical, But also inspirational, Dark, Death of the Earth, Existential, Other, Several Twists, space, supernova
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 08:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21473020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arvak/pseuds/Arvak
Summary: He looked out of the space shuttle’s window and watched his blue planet crack like a kernel bursting apart from a great heat inside; causing an expansion of molecules that the shell couldn’t take. A sudden appearance of cracks, a few at first, then a few more. All at once, like glass shattering, smaller ones filled the empty spaces in between leaving nothing left untouched. Finally, it was still. Bright red light - the molten rock beneath the ground he could guess - shone through the sharp, surreal cracks. There was one - one of the first, largest cracks, which seemed to wrap around the entire planet, spanning through Europe and jutting over to split Australia in two, which shone the brightest.There was no firey explosion. No shockwave that disrupted the space shuttle. Just a scene. It made it that much easier to believe it wasn’t real.
Kudos: 1





	Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> To the few who read this: Enjoy!

He looked out of the space shuttle’s window and watched his blue planet crack like a kernel bursting apart from a great heat inside; causing an expansion of molecules that the shell couldn’t take. A sudden appearance of cracks, a few at first, then a few more. All at once, like glass shattering, smaller ones filled the empty spaces in between leaving nothing left untouched. Finally, it was still. Bright red light - the molten rock beneath the ground he could guess - shone through the sharp, surreal cracks. There was one - one of the first, largest cracks, which seemed to wrap around the entire planet, spanning through Europe and jutting over to split Australia in two, which shone the brightest.

There was no firey explosion. No shockwave that disrupted the space shuttle. Just a scene. It made it that much easier to believe it wasn’t real.

Earth’s atmosphere seemed to burn up, then. All of the ash from disrupted volcanoes surging up and making his beautiful blue Earth look like the barely-seeded planets he’s only ever seen fantastical pictures of. Planets which were nothing more than rock and a molten core. Planets which homed barely more than a hundred species of microscopic creatures. 

In the space of a minute, his blue planet was gone. The cracks spread, more molten light shone through to the center of the Earth, and in one swift move it was obliterated completely by what appeared to be a sudden flash of light from the other side of it. Like something had hit it. Pieces crumbled, glowing molten rock froze into grey globs and tumbled through space, gasses collapsed together and formed pockets he knew he could not see with his eyes alone before they exploded in a cataclysmic reaction on an atomic scale and drifted away to join new galaxies. 

Only then did he see the star exploding far in the distance. A supernova as beautiful as the few that have ever been observed by sophisticated equipment. He was effectively watching the Earth’s demise in reverse. His planet’s explosion caused by the radiating forces of the exploding star so far away from him it took longer for the light to reach his eyes than the forces irradiating from it took to hit his home planet. He saw the star spark bright and then collapse in on itself, all of its atomic processes becoming unstable and nuclear. Its light disappeared, and there was nothing left. 

As he stood there, alone, his crewmates obliviously working on statistics and charting course, he relived this moment over and over in his head until it felt like an entire lifetime lived watching his home - his life - destroyed at once with no warning. No amount of reliving it, though, could change the fact that it had surely happened. 

But he found it impossible to imagine that Earth was gone. It felt like nothing more than as if he had just watched a simulation back at the academy. It didn’t feel real. It was everything he’s ever seen on computer wallpapers, surrealistic posters, fabricated science-fiction videos. How could it have been real? 

He blinked, and he blinked, and he even closed his eyes for a long moment, took a deep breath, and opened them again. But it was all gone. Hanging there in space was only clouds of lone particles and, beyond that, emptiness. 

He found it impossible to fathom the idea that all of his life had just been destroyed by a star so far away without any foresight. There are close-quarters spacial observations to predict this sort of thing. Science was an art form that had the luxury of predetermination. Science could help predetermine the weather. It could predetermine quantum radiation. It could predetermine nearly anything. 

But it couldn’t predetermine the death of that star. 

And now there would be no more predetermining of anything, because there would be no use. Humanity is gone. All of the advancements made, all of the wars had, all of the science discovered and technology built - all for nothing. 

He looked over at his shipmates. Looked at the interior of their shuttle. They only had a fixed amount of gas. They only had so much oxygen. They only had so much time. There was no Earth to return to. There was no one left out there to help them. They were, in truth, now only the last remaining humans in existence. 

What a depressing thought. 

Looking back out of the window, he racked his brain, looking for solutions; he was ever the problem solver. He thought about aliens. He thought about time reversal. He thought about black holes. Alternate dimensions. He thought about anything and everything. 

But he saw no solution. Earth was gone, and there was no time reversal. Any aliens nearby were only several cells large. Even if they _ could _ reach a black hole, which they couldn’t, there’s no evidence to suggest they wouldn’t just cease to exist. And while he knew alternate dimensions were, in theory, possible, they’re nothing more than different planes of reality. They’re not travelable. 

In an instant, his life seemed suddenly so insignificant. The people he never forgave, the friendships he let drift off into nothing just like how the planet’s debris drifted off into the dark oblivion. The lovers he didn’t give enough time to. The few he truly would’ve loved had he had the confidence to tell them so. All of his petty life complications were suddenly so meaningless. Why hadn’t he just lived for simplicity and happiness? Fulfillment and excitement? Why did he have to think he had time to _ wait _ for those things? 

Now his time has run out. 

Everyone’s had. 

He stared, feeling empty, and thought about dying of starvation. Or maybe they suffocated. Maybe they flew right into an asteroid. Eventually, they would reach their end just like the rest of the world, and it was coming sooner rather than later. 

He’d never felt so alone. 

He pulled himself numbly to the interior docking station and pulled on his suit. He gave the code to open the doors to the air-tight room that would slowly draw the air out before opening its doors to bring him into the dead of space. He felt the air get tight and clipped himself in; a force of habit. Then he went out. 

He stared at where the Earth had been and thought of his family. His closest friends. All of his memories. He thought of the tilt of the sun in the sky. He thought of the seasons. He thought of the curve of the horizon. All his life, he’d been in wonder of the unknown. But now, faced with the fact that he could never have it all back, he found infinite beauty in the things he did and the things he had. 

And the thought of how ironic it was; he had spent his entire life trying to get off his planet and into the stars, and now all he can think about is the planet which had left him behind. 

He looked over at the Milky Way, arching from behind where the Earth had been, and thought of the first time he’d decided to chase this dream of his to take flight into the emptiness of space. He’d taken a trip to Utah with his friend - this friend he was in love with, but too nervous to ever tell. They’d spent the night out there, camped out in a tent, listening to music and getting high under the moonless sky. Then crawled out of the tent to see the stars once it had gotten dark, and the view had been positively breathtaking. His friend, sitting there so beautiful, silhouetted by the light and the color of the Milky Way hanging in the sky. 

All of the nights of staring up at the stars, feeling pulled towards something he couldn’t define for a reason he couldn’t understand, and he had never experienced what exactly he had been missing out on. The few pepperings of stars he’d been used to all of his life had the capacity to be so much more, and he had never known. Until that moment, where he had strived to _ know _. 

Looking at it now, he felt like it had lost its magnificence. Stuck out in space, staring at the muse for his life’s work that was only visible because of the lack of his home, he only felt resentment. He had reached his dream. He had crafted himself so perfectly to get to where he wanted to go. And for what? In doing that, he had forgotten to live. He had forgotten how mortal he was. In flying so fast towards the stars, dreaming of being bathed by the light of a different sun, dreaming of reaching new horizons of different planets, he had forgotten about the people on the planet he was leaving behind. 

He had not forgotten that nothing - not even the universe he was drifting within- was immortal, but he also hadn’t realized how truly mortal everything really was. He’d taken mortality for granted. He’d forgotten about time and the wreck it brings as it passes. 

He unclipped himself from the shuttle, memories of opportunities passed, a goal met but a life ultimately unlived, a love lost in a supernova that cost him everything. 

He looked back at the shuttle he was still hanging on to. His gloved hands wrapped around the metal. He wanted nothing more than to become part of the stardust that the supernova had created, stardust that would eventually join to form new planets. New terrain for new organisms to travel. 

He wanted nothing more than to be significant, but there was no significance when there was nothing left to remember, or to be remembered by. 

He took a deep breath of his synthetic air and thought of the past, an unreachable place. He thought about drifting into the void, caught in entropy. Falling into a black hole with the weight of dark matter pulling him in. He thought of being so perfectly destroyed it was as if he never existed at all. 

Then, he let go. 

\-------- 

  
  
  


When he woke up, sweat-soaked and panicked, he pulled himself out of the shuttle’s bed, towards the window, and stared in wonder at the blue planet still glowing its radiant light from the sun's rays caught in its beautiful atmosphere, and he let out a sound of wretched relief. He shook, and he felt the blood slowly return to his face. In the deepest reaches of his heart and soul, he cherished this moment. 

One little fever-dream suddenly helped him see an entirely new way of living. Shaken to the core and torn of his attachments, he now understood. He fully appreciated, then, how limited his time was. In that moment, he wanted so desperately to be back home, surrounded by the people he loves and the jagged, rocky terrain he grew up in. In that moment, at least, he no longer longed for the artificial breath of freedom from the confines of gravity. Instead, he wanted to turn his life in an entirely different direction that would ensure he could fully appreciate those he cares for and those who cared for him. He vowed, as soon as he could, to confess his deep-set love to his friend. Because even rejection was sweeter than never having the chance to speak from the heart. 

He’d decided, then, to become a new man. He’d wake up every morning and look out of his cabin window and smile at the insignificant rise of the sun over the mountains. And it would be wondrous. 

And then his wonder turned to resigned horror. 

The monitors in the shuttle began to scream loudly, alerting the crew of a massive solar storm - one so powerful it could indicate nothing other than a close-by supernova. He watched the distant star turn large, its elements expanding and exploding. The solar system’s heliosphere defended against the foreign suns’ coronal rays for only a second before it burst through. He was able to watch Uranus and Neptune obliterate into nothing before Jupiter and Saturn cracked and swirled out of orbit, crashing into themselves. This close, he could see the Earth's magnetic field divert the waves of nuclear energy before it inevitably was torn away. The Earth was completely ripped apart instead of only cracked, and he watched it evanesce into nothing just as the sun -_ their _ sun - became unstable in effect. There would be two supernovas today. 

Immediately after, the storm reached the shuttle. 

He wondered, distantly, why his dream seemed so much more peaceful than reality. But, of course, dreams are rarely accurate, and accuracy is rarely gentle. 

He watched the storm approach, and he closed his eyes as they were ripped apart atom by atom. 

The molecules of all that had been of their solar system drifted heedlessly into the void. He was now, indeed, part of the stardust that would eventually join new galaxies. 

In every swift ending, there is to come a new beginning. 

Lone, in distant skies. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ The void is calling _  
_ Don’t fear for futures and dreams _  
_ They’re fleeting, retreating _  
  
_ I’m going to want you ‘till the stars evaporate _  
_We’re only here for just a moment in the light_  
_One day it shines for us the next we’re in the night_  
  
** _Starlight, _ ** **Starset ** **  
**

  
  



End file.
